Category Archives: Hillary Clinton

Once again Wikileaks has released hundreds of thousands of pages, many that were classified secret, to the NYT, DerSpeigel, UK’s The Guardian and a couple other foreign news sources. Some of the releases (roughly 9000 documents/cables) are from as early as Feb of this year, meaning they will affect the Obama Administration and of course…Hillary Clinton, per TruthOut’s analysis. From The Guardian writeup (all emphasis mine):

The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an “alpha-dog”, Hamid Karzai as being “driven by paranoia” while Angela Merkel allegedly “avoids risk and is rarely creative”. There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: “We’ll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours.”

Other revelations include a description of a near “environmental disaster” last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium, technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and a profile of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse.

*snip*

Topics covered range from the technical detail of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, to an intimate personality profile of Colonel Gaddaffi, the eccentric Libyan dictator, who they say is nowadays accompanied everywhere by a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse.

The cables cover secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s work under the Obama administration, as well as thousands of files from the Bush presidency.Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.

US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.

The White House, via the State Department released the usual condemnation of the leaks, stating the usual reasons:

The state department’s legal adviser has written to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his London lawyer, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that publication would place at risk “the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and cooperation between countries”.

Oh hell yeah the ‘cooperation between countries’ will be compromised and possibly damaged as it shows how the US really trusts no one, spies on everyone and relies on that old adage: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Wikileaks has said they will redact certain names to protect the innocent…or perhaps to protect the guilty..hard to say…but all the news agencies have said they will do the same as well. More from The Guardian writeup, which discusses our spying on everyone and every country:

The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified “human intelligence directives” issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of “private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys”.

You can go to The Gaurdian’s site here and download key data from the embassy cables and wade through them yourself or read the NYT’s seven plus page synopsis here. Why in the blue hell do they need some of that shit, especially on our so-called allies? The cold-war never ended it seems…no matter what the fuckers in DC tell us.

Read it here (high traffic warning) all 2,922 pages of it. From Politico, some of the highlights..or lowlights depending on your pov:

Josh Gerstein, the of the now-defunct New York Sun, reported from Little Rock, Ark., in 2004: “President Clinton’s new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen. The governments of Dubai, Kuwait and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week. … Information about the donors is available to the public on a single touch-screen computer mounted on a wall on the third floor of the recently opened library.”

AP’s Beth Fouhy and Sharon Theimer reported this morning: “Former President Bill Clinton’s foundation has raised at least $41 million from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments that his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit created by the former president to finance his library in Little Rock, Ark., and charitable efforts to reduce poverty and treat AIDS. Other foreign government givers include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Italy and Jamaica.”

The story did not point out that the Saudis gave at least $1 million to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Tex., along with elaborate gifts that included gold and silver camels.

$5,000,001 to $10,000,000Government of NorwayNationale Postcode LoterijHaim Saban and The Saban Family FoundationMichael SchumacherThe Wasserman Foundation

It’s a trip m’dear reader…and lots of fall-out (read as shit) will be sure to hit the fan for the rest of the week on the Saudi connections I bet, since Hillary will spend lots of time talking to those folks…bet on it.

We should tell them thank you. We should be able to trust that they understand the rule of law and how important our Constitution is.

Obama voted with the heathens to allow warrantless wiretapping and Telco Immunity.

Hillary Clinton voted no and supported Feingold and Dodd. From TPM muckraker:

Moments before the final vote, a handful of senators voted to filibuster the vote, including Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Tom Harkin of Iowa.

So what does that mean? It means that the nations largest telecom companies no longer have to worry about a batch of multi-million lawsuits filed by customers angered that the companies turned over their personal information to the government without a warrant.

It also means that if you are at home making an overseas phone call to a suspected terrorist, the government can monitor that call without a warrant.

Perhaps its just my usual ‘kneejerk’ reaction but I applaud Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy and Tom Harkin for standing their ground on this most heinous bullshit.

Obama can kiss my hairy ass at this point, he looks like all the other sell-outs that voted to destroy our civil rights and grant the fucking Telco’s immunity from civil lawsuits. That might also just be my usual kneejerk reaction but that said..I ain’t happy about his vote to sell the constitution and the rule of law down the fucking river.

A big hug to Jet at Bring it On for this article. Allison Benedikt has written a wonderful OpEd for the Village Voice on Hillary, her supporters and her campaign. It tackles that pesky subject of misogyny very well m’dear reader and I encourage…yea I demand that you read it. Tell me then what you think of it. Just a small blurb of it to get you interested:

Next comes Arianna “No Fear” Huffington, suffering from a strain of short-term memory loss that seems to be going around, to declare: “The greatest triumph of Clinton’s campaign—a complete triumph—is the example she has set for the next generation.“

Currently pregnant with the next generation, let me just say this: There is no greater wish that a mother can have for her daughter than that she will exploit poor people, obliterate Iran, and win rigged class president elections, Putin-style. (Mom, I won 100 percent of the vote!)

I love her!!! Look, as a woman that has fought against sexism my entire fucking life and I might add, the first woman to hold the job as Project Manager on a NASA subcontract in the 80’s….I know how fucked up it is to be female and expect to be treated the same as males…and yet not be treated the same. I had to be better at my job than they were, work longer hours and make less money than they did. My husband divorced me because he was tired of me living at the office..I sacrificed my personal life for that fucking job..and I would probably do it all over again.

I am not bitter about any of it. I loved that job and when the spaceshuttle crashed, I knew many of us would be laid off. I opted to get laid off instead of having them dump a specific male co-worker because his son was suffering from brain cancer and I knew damn well that the health insurance was the most important part of the job for that guy at that point in time.

Besides I wanted to move back to Cali…and that is what I did when I got my walking papers. I went back to Cali, started my own business and raised my son as a single parent. If I am bitter about anything it’s that my ex-husband was a piece of batshit that never paid a buck in child support.

Being bitter never serves anyone. It eats you up inside. That is why I think Hillary and her staunchest supporters need to suck it up and deal. Instead of screaming, bitching and moaning about how she was ‘treated’ they should be proud of what she accomplished by using race, lies and bullshit to win the states she did.